Wednesday, September 19, 2012

There are various aspects of agricultural land redistribution in South Africa which you won’t read in the average mainstream newspaper. One being the number of fully productive farms purchased from white farmers (usually at below market value as enforced by the government) turned into wasteland. In most cases because these commercial farms are handed to people who have no clue how to run a business, let alone the much more complicated facets of commercial farming. The Great South African Land Scandal is a great source covering government mismanagement of land redistribution.

Then there is also a substantial percentage of agricultural land owned by the ruling government not earmarked for redistribution, because ANC fat cats are coining it instead of fulfilling land claims. The Sowetan has now uncovered another nasty consequence of mismanaged land redistribution. The fact that labourers of previously white-owned farms are left high and dry after the sale of commercial farms.

I’m not too sure what the government bafoons thought would happen to these workers after land claims have been settled. Surely the farmer selling the land has no further commitment of employment to the workers, since the commercial farm is sold as going concern. It seems that the tribes receiving the land don’t necessarily want the labourers either, because they either have no intention of using the land as commercial farms, have no clue how to do so or just don’t want the previous labourers on the land. These people have nowhere to go and nobody to feed them, at least not in the way white farmers used to.

So, once again, the ANC manages to take something fully functioning and productive and turn it into crap.

DISGRUNTLED and famished, a community of mostly former farm workers in North West claims they have been abandoned after the farms they had worked and lived on were sold to the Bafokeng nation.

The Royal Bafokeng Administration bought the farm land in Rietvlei outside Rustenburg from the workers' employers.

According to the workers, they were told that it was agreed that a better place to stay would be found for them.

Twelve years down the line, about 800 people on these farms are living without electricity, running water and sanitation.

They live in one-roomed backrooms on different farms while their children walk long distances to schools.

They do not have access to health facilities, safety and security services and facilities like a police station, let alone social grants, as many do not have identity documents and birth certificates.

Every day, most of the residents can be found basking in the sun with their hungry-looking children playing around them and the elderly drinking sorghum beer.

"It's how we live, daily," Nkadimeng Pine, 73, said. If the Bafokeng nation had not bought the land, we could still be employed."

Flora Ranou, a mother of six children and grandmother to 10, said: "We have lived like this for a long time. We are used to this lifestyle. It is hard and we wish to live like other people."

Rustenburg local municipality spokesman Peter Manzana said the municipality had agreed to provide the community with water on Tuesdays and Fridays.

Manzana said the people had refused to move to an alternative area with amenities, Tlaseng village, saying it was "far".

Manager at Royal Bafokeng Administration, Minah Huma, said they started purchasing the majority of plots in the Rietvlei area in 2001 with the aim of consolidating the Royal Bafokeng Nation's land.

She said after the conclusion of some of the transactions, it was discovered that the previous owners had left their workers on the plots. The Royal Bafokeng Nation then took a resolution to integrate them into it.

"A plan to relocate them to other Bafokeng villages was communicated [to] and accepted by these families," she said. - tshehleb@sowetan.co.za

Leonard, I have the same problem - I sent Mike's political commentary to lots of "new" people who's eyes have opened to the shit going on in SA, but cannot access it either- can someone please tell us what to do? Ruan Gouws